New Delhi: Academics and students on Wednesday cited the decrease in the funds for the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), Mumbai, and the consequent withdrawal of fee exemptions to the deprived as an example of how higher education was becoming out of bounds for the weakest sections.
Students of TISS, a private institution which is heavily funded by the government, have been organising a protest over the funds cut that they say will jeopardise the careers of the deprived sections.
The government has decreased by 5 per cent the amount paid towards maintenance cost.
Because of the slash in funding, TISS has withdrawn the fee exemption that it used to provide before 2016 to Scheduled Caste (SC) and Scheduled Tribe (ST) students with parental income less than Rs 2.5 lakh per annum.
Nearly 400 master's and MPhil students from the deprived sections are taking part in the agitation.
Now, all students have to pay Rs 1.2 lakh a year. To add to the problems of the students from the weaker sections, the disbursal of post-matric scholarship money has become erratic.
Last week, the students received the post-matric scholarship money for 2015-16. The ministries of social justice and tribal affairs have been irregular in releasing funds because of a cash crunch.
"The post-matric scholarship funds are not coming regularly. The institute is asking for full fees. The SC and ST students are facing a threat to their education," T. Gouminlal, an MPhil student at TISS, told a people's tribunal organised in Mumbai by a civil society group.
Gouminlal and Yashwant Zagade, another student, blamed the Union human resource development ministry for the crisis because it cut TISS's maintenance grants.
The tribunal organised by the People's Commission on Shrinking Democratic Space, a group of academics and activists working for freedom of expression, dissent, secularism and human rights, heard students from various institutions.
TISS had been providing some support to the economically weaker students from its own maintenance grants. But the HRD ministry asked the University Grants Commission in 2015 to cut the maintenance grants to TISS by 5 per cent every year.
After the protest, the UGC last month released Rs 11 crore to TISS but that is not enough, Gouminlal said.
According to the Economic Survey for 2017-18 tabled in Parliament in January, the spending on education by the state governments and the Centre as a percentage of the gross domestic product was 3.1 per cent for 2012-13 and 2013-14, but slipped to 2.8 per cent in 2014-15, 2.4 per cent in 2015-16, 2.6 per cent in 2016-17 and 2.7 per cent in 2017-18.
Jawaharlal Nehru University student Kanhaiya Kumar said the problem of funds crunch had now plagued central government institutions because the political parties had ignored higher education while the elite had gradually moved away from public institutions.
Historian Romila Thapar claimed the institutions imparting social science education were at a greater risk of funds cut because those in power were not in favour of promoting the spirit of questioning.
"Social science teaches students how to question. Knowledge cannot be pushed forward unless it is questioned. But those in power do not like questioning," Thapar said.
